This is why scammers keep increasing in numbers

[YellowSwap]

A Golden hit ( Stolen ) like this will keep motivating these scammers, this is someone's life time savings been robbed in a matter of minutes. I feel sorry for this person, even though I have lost thousands this year but it's never this way, not to scammers but altcoins investments.



https://x.com/i/status/2002075668570309054

This fella was tricked, he sent all this heavy amount into a fake address that looks almost the same with the original, this is why we need to becareful when we are copying address especially people using laptops to make transactions, the last time I witnessed this similar loss happened to a laptop user.

I still believe that laptops, PC and android phones are a bad way of storing cryptocurrency, most of the time when these devices are infected you won't know, I believe this is what happened to this victim, he should have gotten a hardware wallet rather, to send coins you don't even need to copy paste.

You can't just rebuke losses like this, you need to take actions to avoid them.

[EarnOnVictor]

TBH, anyone can make this kind of a mistake with the way we transact daily. I can't imagine myself, if I were set up this way, I would have fallen a victim. That's the truth!

But this is about my petty money, and not a huge money as significant as $50M. The sender does have any excuse on this, a similar mistake to that of Ben Zhou of Bybit that cost the company about $1.5B.

If I were the sender, any amount hitting $5,000 would not only be double-checked, but triple-checked. Even if riches have entered my head, anything above $100,000 is worth quadruple-checked in this dangerous crypto world.

[NodeMystic]

I am new in the crypto world; that's why I am worried about fund transactions. I always check the receiving address again and again. Now I am thinking about how an old user made this big mistake. I think he or she was overconfident. I am shocked to see the news.

We have to be careful when sending funds to someone else. If you need to send a small fund to the receiver, then check by call or message to ensure the original person received it, then send the target fund.

I learned lesson from this post. Thanks to you.

[promise444c5]

..most of the time when these devices are infected you won't know, I believe this is what happened to this victim, he should have gotten a hardware wallet rather, to send coins you don't even need to copy paste.

He literally got hit by address poisoning and what he did was copy the address from the transaction history which was the whole purpose of address poisoning.. just as the name implies .
Lookonchain explained it though :

Since many wallets hide the middle part of the address with "..." to make the UI look better.
Many users often copy the address from transaction histories, and usually only check the starting and ending letters.
This victim likes to do the same.

When transferring the remaining 49,999,950 $USDT, the victim copied the fake address from his transaction history.

source

This can actually happen when you get a clipboard malware too which is inline with your claim but for it to imitate this particular case, then it has to be specifically designed to attack the particular victim and not just generic manipulation by replacement.

[Odohu]

A Golden hit ( Stolen ) like this will keep motivating these scammers, this is someone's life time savings been robbed in a matter of minutes. I feel sorry for this person, even though I have lost thousands this year but it's never this way, not to scammers but altcoins investments.



https://x.com/i/status/2002075668570309054

This fella was tricked, he sent all this heavy amount into a fake address that looks almost the same with the original, this is why we need to becareful when we are copying address especially people using laptops to make transactions, the last time I witnessed this similar loss happened to a laptop user.

I still believe that laptops, PC and android phones are a bad way of storing cryptocurrency, most of the time when these devices are infected you won't know, I believe this is what happened to this victim, he should have gotten a hardware wallet rather, to send coins you don't even need to copy paste.

You can't just rebuke losses like this, you need to take actions to avoid them.

If the victim had already copied the address when he was performing the test transaction, how come the address was changed when sending the bulk transaction because I don't think he will copy again the second time since what he copied is still in the console? Does it mean the attackers have the means of changing what have been copied? I have been a victim of this scam in the past so I know that the cannot change what has been copied unless you copy the wrong address why you try copying for the second time.

[BIT-BENDER]

I am new in the crypto world; that's why I am worried about fund transactions. I always check the receiving address again and again. Now I am thinking about how an old user made this big mistake. I think he or she was overconfident. I am shocked to see the news.

We have to be careful when sending funds to someone else. If you need to send a small fund to the receiver, then check by call or message to ensure the original person received it, then send the target fund.

I learned lesson from this post. Thanks to you.

Old or new anyone can make a mistake, you may be new to the Crypto-currency world and yet not fall for any scam but you can get experience and that is when the big mistake may arise.
All you have to do is keep increasing your awareness to scams this may be a very easy scam to avoid but if you just make the slightest of mistakes you will fall into any scam.

[Porfirii]

-snip-

I learned lesson from this post. Thanks to you.

If that's really the case, then this thread has done enough already

Everyone can fall victim of address poisoning or other attacks, but considering that he had 50M in crypto and that chances are he did not know how to keep the secret, he was the perfect target. Not that the rest of us with our little savings are free of risk, but I think that these whales, sharks or dolphins (I don't know 50M in which category falls) are at more risk than mere shrimps like us. And yet, you'll do well to take precautions early on and get into the habit of checking addresses several times before hitting send.

[PrivacyG]

If I were the sender, any amount hitting $5,000 would not only be double-checked, but triple-checked. Even if riches have entered my head, anything above $100,000 is worth quadruple-checked in this dangerous crypto world.

Triple checked?  I would ask two more people to check the characters together with me if I had to move amounts as large as Millions.  It is not even hard to check accurately and rapidly by your self, I only 'hope' the person OP posted about spent the Bitcoin out of forgetfulness and not because they did not care about checking it before hand.  If not, laziness and stupidity often costs a lot.

-----

Old or new anyone can make a mistake, you may be new to the Crypto-currency world and yet not fall for any scam but you can get experience and that is when the big mistake may arise.

Getting Scammed out of 50 Million Dollars is not about learning experience any more, if you lose 50 Dollars to a Scammer it is a 50 Dollar lesson but no lesson is worth 50 Million.

[Patikno]

A Golden hit ( Stolen ) like this will keep motivating these scammers, this is someone's life time savings been robbed in a matter of minutes. I feel sorry for this person, even though I have lost thousands this year but it's never this way, not to scammers but altcoins investments.



https://x.com/i/status/2002075668570309054

This fella was tricked, he sent all this heavy amount into a fake address that looks almost the same with the original, this is why we need to becareful when we are copying address especially people using laptops to make transactions, the last time I witnessed this similar loss happened to a laptop user.

Essentially, a poisoning attack exploits the negligence of someone, who doesn't carefully check the address of a transaction they are about to make. I suspect poisoning attacks are aimed at users who have already been targeted, or tracked. Maybe, crypto owners with only a small amount of crypto in their wallets won't be targeted. Nevertheless, we need to be careful with every transaction we make, especially large-value transactions. We shouldn't be careless, and we need to double-check every detail before confirming the transaction.

By the way, these cases has happened before, and it might happen again someday (I don't expect it) if someone continues to neglect to check carefully beforehand.

Last year, around 2024, a similar case occurred, and the losses were much larger. Here it is :



Source : x.com

[nakamura12]

I am new in the crypto world; that's why I am worried about fund transactions. I always check the receiving address again and again. Now I am thinking about how an old user made this big mistake. I think he or she was overconfident. I am shocked to see the news.

We have to be careful when sending funds to someone else. If you need to send a small fund to the receiver, then check by call or message to ensure the original person received it, then send the target fund.

I learned lesson from this post. Thanks to you.

Well, it really is a lesson for you since there's a victim about address poisoning but in my understanding is that it feels like there's also a clipboard malware because if he did copy the first address where to send then it should be the same when pasting the address again unless the owner/sender copy a wallet address which explains sending to a wrong address. That's what I understand about the post since there's not much information and it's only the address that starts with the same number and letter but the letter is not capital letter.

[Ultegra134]

Scammers will always exist because they'll always find victims, change tactics and spice up their techniques to keep scamming more and more people. Similar scams with addresses (copy-paste scam, I don't remember how it was called but would change your clipboard address into theirs) have existed since the early days. That's pure robbery and I feel sorry for the victim, losing such a great amount of money is insane and I don't know how someone could cope with it. This is a lesson for the rest of us to be extremely cautious when conducting any transaction.

[CryptSafe]

This is a call for a proper scrutiny on wallet address upon transacting; it does not take much to do a proper check on the receiving wallet address before you make or initiate your transfer. I have always said this, that whenever one wants to transact, they should be at calm to take their time in doing a proper check on both ends by having a close look at the receiving wallets upon copying and after pasting it to be very sure of what they are doing, because any transaction initiated can never be reversed till it reaches its destination and also, if there is a malware inversion they can be able to detect it upon pasting the recieving address becasue it would definitely change and that calmness would enable them see it early enough to change it and possible format their device to be free from such malware.

It is better to delay while initiating a transaction because it would help you see things for yourself, than to be in haste and lose your assets to hackers when you have every opportunity to correct any observations while doing your transaction patiently.

[promise444c5]

If the victim had already copied the address when he was performing the test transaction, how come the address was changed when sending the bulk transaction because I don't think he will copy again the second time since what he copied is still in the console?

He recopied it again after the test transaction, reason to that is not known but there’s a lot of possibility, e.g not all OS have the clipboard history feature unless managed by another software, so we could assume he might override the copied address  probably due to copying the TXID or any other stuffs and just need to recopy the address on next attempt .

Hence, since he received a new deposit ( from the poisoning address) within that time frame then it must have taken a little bit of time for him to make the second transaction( out )..

But still , address can be replaced in a clipboard by a malware so… don’t trust , always verify.

[Oshosondy]

I still believe that laptops, PC and android phones are a bad way of storing cryptocurrency, most of the time when these devices are infected you won't know, I believe this is what happened to this victim, he should have gotten a hardware wallet rather, to send coins you don't even need to copy paste.

Yeah, this is true, but if you know how to avoid malware, that is very good, it can save you from a lot of things like wallet compromise avoidance, but people that are affected do not know about how their devices can be exposed to malware, it will be too late before they will realize and learn lesson. Learning how to avoid malware is very important. But what that is most important is the use of cold wallet. If you can not get a cold wallet yet, use a multisig wallet which is better than normal wallet.

[Joy- maker]

After reading what the OP and others said I was a little bit confused, because I haven't heard nor seen such a thing before, I'm just hearing it for the first time. So in other for me to be more clear on what wallet poisoning is all about, and how it works, I carried out some few research, and after reading through some sources I came to understand what wallet poisoning is all about and how it works, as in how someone can be able to poison your wallet and steal your funds.

Now this is how it works, since cryptocurrency transactions are been recorded on a blockchain, the person who want to poison your wallet will check the blockchain to find out the wallet you usually send funds to. And after that the attacker will now created a wallet address that look similar to the wallet you usually send funds to. Then the attacker will now send small amount of crypto to your wallet, so that his or her fake wallet will now appear in your transaction history, then next you copy the wallet address you we then copy the wrong one thinking that it's the trust one, why it is not, and end up send funds to the attacker wallet address, because the two wallets will look alike making you think that you're copying the trusted wallet. So to be on the safer side avoid copying wallet address from your transaction history if you don't want to be a victim of this wallet poisoning.

[mikel_012]

I can't believe someone with $50 millions would copy an address from the blockchain explorer when he can double check in the clipboard or save the address first in the wallet addresses list.

I can always see transactions like this in my address but I just ignore them, many explorers also hide the transactions that are suspicious to avoid this, but I know many wallets don't so you can see the last transaction in the wallet is always a bad address poisoning attack.

Remember to never copy any address from the explorer, copy from the original place and double check not only the beginning and ending but also some letters and numbers in the middle for more guarantees.

[m2017]

A Golden hit ( Stolen ) like this will keep motivating these scammers, this is someone's life time savings been robbed in a matter of minutes. I feel sorry for this person, even though I have lost thousands this year but it's never this way, not to scammers but altcoins investments.

Scammers and thieves (those who want to easily get what doesn't belong to them) have always existed (and will always exist). Cryptocurrencies allow them to enrich themselves unfairly due to the irreversibility of transactions and the "easy access" of BTC-owners, given that they are sole owners (which makes them vulnerable, as it's enough to deceive one owner, not the entire bank's security service, for example).

This fella was tricked, he sent all this heavy amount into a fake address that looks almost the same with the original, this is why we need to becareful when we are copying address especially people using laptops to make transactions, the last time I witnessed this similar loss happened to a laptop user.

1st, you need to weed out scammers and not fall for their bait. 2nd, carefully check BTC-addresses for accuracy before any transaction. 3rd, buy a HW device.

I still believe that laptops, PC and android phones are a bad way of storing cryptocurrency,

Phones are certainly a poor storage option. Laptops and PCs are acceptable storage options if you take appropriate protective measures.

most of the time when these devices are infected you won't know, I believe this is what happened to this victim, he should have gotten a hardware wallet rather, to send coins you don't even need to copy paste.

PC + hardware wallet - the most reliable storage method.

[ColdLava40]

I know we all make mistakes, but more than often this kind of scam are being targeted on big investors.

Considering how much he was sending, he should have been more careful with his receiving address. You can't be too naive about something like that.

Even after copying and pasting an address, I still try to see if each characters match with what I copied from the receiving address.

[The Cryptovator]

A Golden hit ( Stolen ) like this will keep motivating these scammers, this is someone's life time savings been robbed in a matter of minutes. I feel sorry for this person, even though I have lost thousands this year but it's never this way, not to scammers but altcoins investments.

This fella was tricked, he sent all this heavy amount into a fake address that looks almost the same with the original, this is why we need to becareful when we are copying address especially people using laptops to make transactions, the last time I witnessed this similar loss happened to a laptop user.

Though also I feel sorry, but I'm just wondering how he earned that money. It's kind of stupid behaviour when sending such a big amount; it's just not about double-checking the address. For me, I will check each and every letter of the address before confirming the transaction. Of course, even if I send a big amount, I try with a small amount, whether it's a hardware wallet or a software wallet. I won't let my funds be lost this way. Because I work hard to earn money, so I have to be very careful when sending funds.

I was surprised when I read this thread; still, people don't take it seriously about handling their funds. It doesn't matter what wallet we have been using; it's a matter of laziness. Otherwise, without multiple checking, the funds shouldn't be sent from my wallet, especially when it's big. That's the reason why we need to learn before earning. Otherwise your hard earnings will be lost this way. Hope the forum users will take a lesson from that thread, though it has been discussed multiple times. 

[rat03gopoh]

but more than often this kind of scam are being targeted on big investors.

That's somewhat true, but it's not really about the amount. Rather, this attack targets wallets with activity patterns that are more likely to be stolen, such as many input addresses and only a few output addresses.
If you have a wider variety of output addresses, attackers will think you don't regularly copy destination addresses from your tx history.